World Without End, Amen
by SomehowSundown
Summary: He stands in the main observatory, watching the world whir around the windows, dew collecting, busy and beautiful, on tempered glass and thinks "this is a gift." As it was in the beginning; is now; this is what shall be. A Joshua character study.


**Title: **World Without End, Amen

**Author: **SomehowSundown

**Rating: **T

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. The title is borrowed from a version of the Gloria Patri

**Fandom: **V, 2009

**Characters / Pairing: **Joshua, to a lesser extent Lisa, Anna, Samuel; mentions of Father Jack; references to Dale, Georgie, Ryan, Erica

**Spoilers: **Spoilers throughout Season 1, and for the first episode of Season 2

**Summary: **He tastes defeat, tangy and blushing, and the weight of it tilts his chin to the floor. He feels heavy, a leaf in a storm, mindless, and mercy to the whims of the wind, but he cannot yield, cannot be conquered. A Joshua character study.

**Word Count: **1,620

**Author's Note: **I've written two stories so far, both including Joshua as either a character or a driving force behind the plot, and yet, every time I try to write from his point of view, I come up empty. I have no grasp of his character whatsoever. He has so many faces – joking with Dale in Episode 3 ("If you were human, you'd be dead. Joke's on them"), vulnerable in Episode Four ("I can't do this), stoic and steady when he talks to the Fifth Column on the ground, outraged at Chad and gentle with Lisa in the finale, completely without emotion in the premier of Season 2 – and I can't seem to incorporate them all in a way that does justice to his character. So I came up with this instead. It's terribly abstract and it's full of intentional fragments, misuse of punctuations and parenthesis, etc. When I think of Joshua, this is what I think:

* * *

World Without End, Amen

* * *

His eyes are open (blinks, once; twice), and yet, he cannot see, here at the end.

(This is but a glimpse).

* * *

He once dreamt of a girl that held opportunity, glossy and gleaming and clear like water in her hands. In her eyes, the world. But he'd refused a drink and he's been thirsty, ever since.

* * *

It ends with a start, and starts with an end.

"He's a traitor," Anna says. She glitters. "Skin him".

Picking up his knife, solid, silver (and that glitters too), he feels –

He feels.

* * *

He stands in the main observatory, watching the world whir around the windows, dew collecting, busy and beautiful, on tempered glass and thinks "this is a gift."

* * *

He must be bewitched. There is no other explanation.

And yet, he knows nothing of magic, or witchery; only science.

(This is not science).

* * *

"You've changed," Samuel says. He waits, lofty, lightly, unbalanced on the precipice of time and favor.

Inhales once; twice.

"Welcome to the Fifth Column. (Welcome to the War)." His arm extends, embraces; a locket and key, a touch that tingles with warmth, and warning.

Exhales, a rush; he breathes again; once; twice.

* * *

The V's don't bury their dead. (They don't mourn them, either).

* * *

Anna passes him, pauses him, in one of the hallways. "Is it done?" she asks.

He blinks. "It's done".

"Good," she says. "I will not have traitors aboard my ship. I will find them, and when I do, they too will meet their ends. I know I can count on your help." It lingers in the air, a feather made of brass. (He doesn't know how to fly).

"Anything, my queen." A bow. (A lie). Blinks again, once; twice.

She nods. "I trust you," she tells him.

He wants her dead.

* * *

He tastes defeat, tangy and blushing, and the weight of it tilts his chin to the floor. He feels heavy, a leaf in a storm, mindless, and mercy to the whims of the wind, but he cannot yield, cannot be conquered.

He must choose a side. (He will tell this to someone else, one day soon, one day far in the future).

His head levels, regal, resolute.

* * *

He goes back to Samuel.

"Teach me," he says.

He learns.

* * *

Emotion is new, and he is too, in part, in entirety; it sings to him, in his blood, in his bones, in his head, in his heart, and he sings with it, eager and tentative, a harmony that's scared, and secure.

His thirst ebbs, subsides, (but never ends).

* * *

He visits the observation deck often, seeing starvation, stealing, suffering, and strife.

He asks himself a question.

* * *

(He's seen this before).

* * *

He stands above a table, death twisting and twirling, curling about and at his fingertips. It hums in the hands of its master.

"This is a flaw;" a hiss (He knows nothing of what it means to be flawed).

"I'm not the one that's flawed," he says. His only answer, an echo, the sound of mirthless laughter ringing, racing in his ears.

He places the empty syringe on the cart beside him.

That is the end of Dale Maddox.

* * *

He sleeps; he sleeps. And when he sleeps he dreams of waves and wonder, waking parched.

* * *

"We've never had a murder on any of our ships," he says to Anna's back. "Who would do such a thing?"

This is the first of many firsts.

He smiles. (Anna doesn't; she demands that he form a team to find the culprit immediately).

* * *

"Long live the Fifth Column," a step, and there, another end.

(This is not the last of many lasts).

* * *

Sacrifice is silent. (It resonates, reverberates). It smiles at him sadistically. It speaks of untold misery. It waltzes up and down the length of his bones and under his skin and he wants to scratch at it until his arms run red.

He stands straighter, instead.

* * *

The air is gray, grave, and heavy with ash. "Skin them," Anna says.

He's been here before.

* * *

He picks up his knife, holds it, weighs it.

And then he cuts, (into him, into himself) and the fabric of sanity shifts, fragments, catches, pauses, and he cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot move; and when it ends (he ends) he wonders if he's made of nothing more than ends (no blood, no bone, no beginnings).

* * *

He visits the observation deck often, seeing skylines, sunsets, satellites, streams, stars, sympathy, and simplicity.

He has no answers (just too many questions).

* * *

When he looks upon a puddle, this is what looks back:

A tide; an ebb, a flow, a rock. Shadow, flame, a kaleidoscope of dizzy disenchantment. And always, eyes; blue and green and jaded with a whisper of chance.

* * *

(He doesn't sleep tonight, for fear of what he'll see).

* * *

Enough, he thinks. (This must end).

He gathers himself, collects his frayed ends (more ends; there are many), winds them warmly together; threads upon threads, blues and greens until he is twisted so tightly that nothing and no one could ever unravel him again.

* * *

"Based on your neurological readings, your situational empathy is well within the normal range for our species," he says.

Nothing; no change.

"In short, you do not feel human emotion," he adds.

Nothing; no movement.

She starts him on this dangerous witch hunt (he's never liked fire, it burns too brightly, too loud); tells him to discover who's Fifth Column and who's not.

Nothing; stillness. (If he's made of ends, she's made of nothings, and both of them are frozen where they are).

He still wants her dead.

* * *

Anna's bliss is a whitewash; a wash of white, a blinding, a binding; he'd close his eyes, escape, if he could see only black instead.

"Nothing forward, nothing behind; no looming fate, only peace;" it burns his ears.

(Perhaps he does know something of witchery).

This is not a gift.

* * *

"There's no going back," he says. (Ever). He stops, turns, decides.

Forward, there's a future; brilliant, like a shrill supernova, and shivering.

(He's not sure he's ready; he's not ready to be sure).

* * *

When he closes his eyes, he sees water and walls. When they open again, only one is gone; ebbed, subsided.

* * *

"Make sure they can't trace it back to you." Another time; another place; another table; another syringe.

The tart perfume of absence lingers, like a promise.

That is the end of George Sutton.

(Another end).

* * *

Death leaves his fingertips cold. He is no master. He is but a slave; a pebble, soft and stoic in the flow of fate.

But he stands, suspended in a compromise, even when he's brought to his knees. (He can't; he must).

* * *

He waxes resilient, wanes weak; withers and reinforces in the in betweens, and his colors do not show, not ever.

* * *

The communication device flickers to life, with it Father Jack's voice, raspy, shining; an illusion of sundown, disheartened. He hasn't met the man, but his speech is kind, soft, and weighted with grief, splendor fading. (They will not meet face to face for many days).

"Do you think he's in a better place, Joshua?" Wavering, the need for reassurance hangs demanding in the dissonance. He is not the priest. He knows nothing of the afterlife (except, maybe, that there'll be water). But he imagines a face much like his own, outer skin; pleading, imperfect, proof.

(He still has no answers)

"Yes," he tells him. "I do."

* * *

Sometimes, he wishes he were truly stone.

* * *

He stands in front of a girl, a future queen, who holds an opportunity in her hands. He swallows, once; twice. (Dry, still dry).

"You're asking me to betray my mother," she tells him. "To murder my own kind," she says.

She says she's sorry. She tells him she can't. She knows not what she holds in her hands. (She will, one day soon, one day far in the future).

But she takes hold of a thread (something else that she holds in her hands), one of his, and thinks, tugs, and if he's not careful, he'll come undone.

(She's not yet a queen).

* * *

He's held death, he's held life, but he doesn't know what it is to hold the opportunity for opportunity. (It's glossy, it gleams, it's blue and it's green; it looks like water; he can touch, but cannot taste).

* * *

Lisa lifts her eyes to his, and he's reminded of a dream of a dream. (Her eyes are blue too). The image hollows into his head, pretty and poisonous; stays there; dances to drumbeats (thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump).

He sees a queen. He sees a future.

(He is both sure, and ready).

* * *

"You have to do this," he whispers. "For all of us." He looks up, and everything freezes, and he feels (_feels_)sunsets and morning dew, and silver knives, blue eyes, and promises, the world (this is not a dream), and then he stops; freezes too.

He has one more end. (He is one more end).

Everything unfreezes with a shatter, a sound, a silence.

* * *

He shoots, once; twice.

He's shot, once; twice.

* * *

As it was in the beginning; is now; this is what shall be.

* * *

In a world that's not a world, this is what he sees:

Water (always water). Whirls of white and shades of gray. A clock. A cross. A crown. Hesitance, stormy skies, and the sound of bells. An end to a path, a path to the end. And in the center, where a girl who's not a girl should stand, nothing.

(He dreams no more; blinks, once; twice, and opens his eyes).

He gasps in the sour taste of sorcery, rainwater dancing on his tongue, and wakes.

* * *

(His thirst ebbs, subsides).

**

* * *

**

Author's Note:

I wanted to dry a different style of writing, and this is what I came up with. I don't really expect it to be understood, as I'm not sure I understand it myself, which stems from the fact that I don't understand Joshua. Here's how I see this story: there are 41 parts. Part 1 takes place between Part 39 and 40. Part 3 is the beginning. Parts 40, Joshua's last scene in Red Sky, and 41, Joshua's scene in the beginning of Season 2, are the end.

If you got to the end, and through that last author's note, without walking away in confusion, thanks for reading!


End file.
